In the European Union (EU) (and other industrialised regions) vehicle safety standards have improved considerably over the past few decades, resulting in the realisation of substantial casualty savings. These improvements have been driven by regulations (including frontal and side impact regulations) and consumer testing programmes such as the European New Car Assessment Programme (Euro NCAP), which have encouraged manufacturers to exceed the minimum requirements set out in the regulations. Globally, over 1.25 million people died as a result of road accidents in 2013. Many of these casualties occurred in low- and middle-income countries where the estimated road traffic death rate is substantially higher than that in the safest European countries. Vehicle safety in these emerging markets is far behind that seen in Europe, and if the lessons learnt in industrialised regions could be effectively and efficiently applied then there could be considerable casualty reductions and economic benefits. Vehicle safety can be split into two main types: * Primary safety technologies such as Electronic Stability Control (ESC) reduce the chances of a collision occurring. * Secondary vehicle safety includes technologies (such as airbags) and structural developments in vehicles that reduce the severity of injuries in a collision. In 2015, TRL carried out a statistical analysis to determine how many lives could be saved in Brazil if minimum car secondary safety regulations and consumer testing programmes were applied to new. Primary safety was not considered. The aim of this new study was to extend the previous analysis to predict how many car user deaths and injuries could be prevented in four Latin American countries (Argentina, Chile, Mexico and, from the previous study, Brazil) by establishing minimum car secondary safety regulations and consumer testing. The major regulations considered are United Nations (UN) Regulations No. 14, 16 (seat belts and anchorages), 94 (occupant protection in frontal collision) and 95 (occupant protection in side or lateral collisions). The study concludes that up to 40,000 car occupant fatalities could be prevented across some of the major geographical regions of Latin American between 2016 and 2030, if minimum vehicle safety standards were adopted. If seriously injured occupants are also considered then it is estimated that up to 440,000 killed or seriously injured car user casualties could be prevented. Economic assessment suggests that these casualty reductions could save up to 143 billion US dollars over the period 2016 to 2030. The casualty and monetary savings would be significantly greater if the whole Latin American region adopted minimum vehicle secondary safety standards. Some Latin American countries have started the legislative process and are now applying some standards that are similar to the EU (and other similar industrialised regions), but there is still a significant gap between the regulated vehicle safety standards in the industrialised regions and Latin America. In particular, frontal and side impact tests meeting UN Regulations 94 and 95 should be mandated and applied to all new cars sold across the whole Latin American region as soon as practicable. In addition, seat belts should be mandatory for all passengers and this should be enforced to ensure that wearing rates increase; without a substantial increase in the proportion of people wearing a seat belt the casualty savings estimated in this paper cannot be realised. Finally, it is strongly recommended that ESC (Global Technical Regulation (GTR) 8, or UN13H) and pedestrian protection (GTR 9 or UN127) are also adopted into Latin American car safety regulations as these are proven to be cost effective countermeasures with established UN Regulations. (Author/publisher)
Samenvatting